Flipping the Inquiry Ratio

• Originally posted by Darryl Anderson at collaborativelearner.posterous.com
• Posted at 7:43 am on Sat, Sep 22, 2012

In the past five years as an MYP teacher, and the past few as MYP Coordinator visiting other teachers’ classrooms, I’ve noticed that even though the MYP is a curriculum framework designed to support student-led inquiry, for the most part curriculum units seem to follow a 80%/20% rule. For the first 80% of a unit, the teacher uses various strategies to have students inquire into a teacher-generated unit question, with only the final 20% used for a truly student-driven inquiry-based summative assessment. As described by graingered two posts ago, “we define the list of what kids should know, and then we make up questions to teach to the lists” which tends to result in “artificial inquiry” instead of truly getting to the essence of “limitless inquiry.”

In my Grade 10 Humanities class this year, we’re trying something new. We’re flipping the ratio described above so that we start with 20% of laying the foundations of content, just enough to get the students intrigued and enthusiastic. Then we leave the remaining 80% for them to generate their own paths of inquiry, where they set the number of assessments, the types of assessments, the due dates and even the assessment criteria that will apply. The unit is focusing on the concepts of ideologies, government and effect. We went through 5 classes of learning about various political ideologies and brainstorming their effects on individuals and communities around the world. Now they have 20 classes to apply those concepts and the inquiry statement to whatever content they choose.

So far the results have been very intriguing, and the level of engagement has sky-rocketed. This used to be the “Nazism, Fascism and Communism” unit, which only tended to appeal to a certain number of male students. Now those boys can really delve into whatever ideologies they choose, while all the other students come up with what they’re interested in. They’ve truly impressed me a number of advanced inquiry statements that I never could have dreamed of – “How has conservatism affected the rights of LGBT people globally?” “How has Confucianism affected the governments of East Asia throughout history?” “How does Islamic feminism compare with Western feminism?”

The student-driven inquiry (80%) part of this unit is just beginning so I’m curious (and a bit nervous) to see how it all plays out. As Brian (my partner in this inquiry experiment) mentioned in his post a few days ago, it can be somewhat daunting to give up control to the students when it comes to setting the assessment parameters. 

For now I can definitely feel a more palpable buzz to the classroom than I have in previous years.  One of my students said the other day that Humanities has become her favourite class. When I asked why, she said it was because she got to teach herself what she always wanted to learn about.

Interactions

• Originally posted by Darryl Anderson at collaborativelearner.posterous.com
• Posted at 1:55 pm on Mon, Apr 2, 2012

We usually picture a "traditional" classroom as a one-to-one dialogue between teacher at the front and students sitting in rows paying attention, ready to answer questions. In the MYP, we often change the model to have students sitting in groups working collaboratively with each other, with the teacher there to act as a guide. But sometimes small-group collaboration can be messy and noisy. A parent or another teacher might walk in and wonder what kind of learning is going on here? Why are there so many students talking at once? Is the teacher in control? What is everyone doing?

Which is the better example of effective learning?

During this professional growth month, I've gone into many classrooms to see what kinds of interactions are taking place. I've seen the whole spectrum from “traditional” to “messy”. One Friday afternoon with a notably active bunch of students, I had a colleague come in to my class and observe a rowdy debate among 14 students. At first I was concerned about my perceived lack of control, but the feedback I got from both my colleague and students was actually quite positive. Even though they were constantly trying to interrupt each other and words were flying everywhere, the students were eagerly focused on the debate topic for over half an hour.

I think we all know there's definitely a time for more “traditional” teacher-student interaction, and also time for the messy, noisy collaborative student-student interactions as well. We just need to know when to let go and let things get messy. I think if the teacher frames the lesson with an engaging topic or question for the students to grab on to, we have no choice but to let them run away with it.

Assessment: Who's in Control

• Originally posted at collaboraivelearner.posterous.com by Brian Neises
• Posted at 12:13 pm on Wed, Mar 28, 2012

What if students were able to choose when and what they wanted to be assessed on?  That simple question was posed by Dan recently to me in a staffroom chat.  It quickly exploded into an hour long discussion, that resulted in about 2 weeks worth of work on re-imagining my classroom experience for next year.

I think I was alway comfortable with the idea of students choosing their own topics or concepts for inquiry, but I was never able to come up with many good assessments that allowed for good student initiated action.  It was hard to think of open ended assignments.  Dan’s question allowed for an end-around to the problem of the teacher structuring tasks, and then making students fit their learning and inquiry into the teacher’s structure and time-frame.

Luckily, I teach within an MYP context, so there are skill driven objectives set out for my classes already.  Currently, I set an assignment for a specified objective, like I think most teachers do.  Why do I do it that way?  That’s just the way it was always done.  Teacher gives instruction;  teacher gives assignment;  teacher chooses objective; teacher gives a grade; and so on.  Why do we usually not let students decide on what they want to demonstrate when studying plants, or civilizations, or poetry?  Most likely, we teachers want control.  If we let students run free, then how will we ensure they’ve learned!?

So what we’ve come up with in addressing that question is a simple framework in essence, but difficult in management.  I will be teaching a few weeks of base content, then allowing students to inquire into anything they want that addresses the unit’s key/significant concept.  I will be conferencing with students regularly (once a week minimum), and negotiating how they will meet certain minimum requirements over the course of the year.  Most likely students will need to choose two or three ways to be assessed over an 8 week unit on a particular concept, and keep a portfolio journalling their progress.  However, they may choose more if they are really into that topic, or fewer if they could care less.  The skill driven objectives of the MYP admittedly make this much easier.  The role of the teacher will drastically change.  It’s honestly a bit scary!  Students will be allowed to decide what objectives they want to meet; how they will demonstrate they met them; how and when they will be assessed; and who their audience will be.  They will be free to choose more, while I spend more time directing, rather than dictating, learning.

So what if students actually had the choice to choose how and when they were assessed?  Here are a few advantages and challenges I foresee right now before diving in.  Please leave comments and feedback to help us work through this process of enabling students to direct their own assessment!

Pros

Increased practice at research skills

Increased practice at planning and organizing time

Variety of assessment products (movies, blogs, teaching lessons, video conferencing, etc)

Increased formative and self assessment, as well as re-assessing work

Possibility for year-long assessment

Natural differentiation of tasks

Increased student ownership of learning

Students targeting specific areas that need improvement

All projects become individually tailored

Challenges

Me giving up control!

Keeping track of all students tasks

Managing the learning environment

Making sure students make wise choices

Maintaining motivation

Testing knowledge (can you test? individual tests?)

Changing stakeholders’ perceptions of learning

Can you think of any more?

Collaborative planning

Originally posted at collaboraivelearner.posterous.com by 

• Patrick OConnor
• Posted at 4:15 pm on Mon, Mar 26, 2012

Are you one of those professionals who tries to 'turn off' from work? You don't want to talk or think about work after hours? You have militant discipline and do not cross the line? Or are you the dedicated, drives-others-crazy with non-stop shop talk? Before during and after work, you just keep thinking about work?

Of course we're likely to be neither but somewhere on the middle of a spectrum between these two points. However, professional dialogue is vital to improving our practice. Most of us would not have this built into a work-day and so it can be hard to find the time or motivation. On a recent weekend escape, I was with colleagues. Imagine the dilemma? What a great opportunity for professional dialogue. But we didn't want to talk about work! It was a weekend to relax and escape. However, I still managed to come away with a brilliant idea that I'm excited to put into practice. That happened because in talking about work with a colleague, we were also talking about subjects we are passionate about. It didn't seem like shop talk. I also finished the chat and filed it away for thinking about further during work hours.
What was the idea?
My friend is participating in a social networking photo-a-day activity. Done for personal reasons and enjoying it. After talking about this for a while I made the connection to my own subject and we started discussing ways that I could do a similar thing for my students. What would need to be changed? What would be the best platform for feedback and sharing? It was a quick, enjoyable conversation, that did not interfere with our personal escape from work, but was also a mix of personal and professional interests.
It's a fine line, knowing when to talk shop and when not to. I'm glad i did, and I don't think it changed the tone of our weekend. Or maybe I'm being selfish because I have been on the receiving end of conversations that I thought were not in the right time or place.
The bottom line is, there needs to be more opportunity for colleagues to get together, during work hours, to inspire and share together. or at least to get on line and share and learn more because it is valuable, but  difficult to find the right time and place.
When I was younger, professional retreats were popular. Businesses do them. We arrange them for our students, but we don't do them ourselves.  Food for thought.
   
Patrick O'Connor
Visual Arts Teacher KIS International School
Artist
THAILAND
www.itsapatoconnor.blogspot.com

The Classroom Environment - Creating a culture for Learning

• Go to original post by Ange Molony
• Posted at 11:43 am on Fri, Mar 23, 2012

Peer observation can be a genuinely meaningful experience for everyone, if and only if everyone wants it to be. 

I've certainly been involved in my fair share of rushed and incomplete peer observations sessions. I've used excuses about being busy or it being unnecessary or about how it can be a waste of valuable time. But I've also been a part of observation sessions that are focused and worthwhile, and that bring about opportunities for clear and meaningful self-reflection. 

Just recently, a coordinator visited my G12 Maths SL class to observe my lesson. Throughout the process my coordinator played the role of my mirror - the best tool for reflection! 

We had a quick pre-observation chat and I said that I wanted to focus on The Classroom Environment - Creating a culture for learning. This meeting was really important for setting the tone for the whole process. Because I chose the focus it meant that I was in control of my learning and development, it instantly felt more like a professional development opportunity than an evaluation process (in this case it was a PD opportunity, but the same set up could be used for evaluation). We all know our strengths and weaknesses and we all have aspects of our teaching that we'd like to improve. We are either getting better or worse as teachers, nobody stays the same. Own it!
So, I established a goal and we decided that he would be looking at how on-task my students were and he would also script tape the entire lesson (like the person in the courtroom but without the weird typewriter and the woolly jumper, they always wear woolly jumpers).

My observer did two key things during the lesson:

• Wrote down everything that was said
• Took an on-task vs off-task survey of every student (he did this every 5 minutes of the lesson)

Not an easy thing to do!

We followed up on the next school day and I looked at the stats and the transcript of my lesson. As I read through the transcript I was immediately self reflecting and sharing my thoughts about the lesson. "I should have done this.....", "I wanted this to happen here.....", "That worked out really well", "Wow, I say some weird things" "The kids responded better than I expected" etc etc.  Throughout my own self-reflection my observer continued to act as a mirror. He didn't interrupt or tell me which aspects of my lesson to focus on, he just allowed me to talk about the parts of my lesson that worked, that didn't work, that I enjoyed and that I didn't enjoy. With clarifying questions, active listening and by adding or reminding me of things that he observed, he really enabled a very powerful opportunity for self reflection. 

At the end of our discussion (my self-reflection and analysis of my own lesson) he helped me decide on what changes I would make so that I could improve my lessons and ultimately continue to improve the Culture of Learning in my classes.

These words on the image below are a great for self-reflection and for deciding on ways to implement changes in your class.  

I'm going to eliminate some bad habits, modify some of my techniques and experiment with some new approaches.
Perhaps after your next lesson you might glance over these words and make a plan to make a difference in your class?

Ange Molony

Twitter: @MissAngeDP

It’s observation time.

• Go to original post Ange Molony
• Posted at 11:09 am on Mon, Mar 12, 2012

It’s peer observation month at our school. (Queue the music of dread?)
Where do you sit on this? Does peer observation induce fear or excitement? Is it something that you run to or run away from? Does it eat up your valuable time or is it quick and efficient?
Over the last few years at our school we have really tried to develop a peer observation month that is all things positive. It aims to be exciting, time efficient and rewarding for all teachers involved (the observer and the observed). I think that this year @DanMagie has put together a great system that will reach all staff that are willing to give it a go and it will even bring some of the unwilling over to the bright side.
First we were asked to think about one area, from the list below, that we (as individual teachers) wanted to focus on.




Domain 1:  Planning and preparation
Domain 2: The classroom environment
Domain 3: Instruction
Domain 4: Professional responsibilities
You can read in more detail about each of these domains here
(Danielson, Charlotte. Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching. 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1996. Print.)
After we each chose our own personal focus area we were grouped into each of the four domains. So we instantly found ourselves working with a small group of teachers that have similar goals. One step closer to what will be a valuable experience, right? But the next step is what I think is going to make this all work.
Self directed approach that is followed by one expectation.

1. Self directed approach - Your group can discuss options and come to agreement regarding your own ideas.
2. Submit at least one personal reflection to the Professional Growth blog.

It is so simple that it will work and it so open-ended that it will allow for some teachers to really dig deep and explore the domains. I’m kinda hoping that this might not stop at the end of the month (you could continue to be self-reflective and use the domains as a focus).
(Oh, and the bonus is that if nothing else you will learn about posterous.com!)
My group is looking at Domain 2: The classroom environment. I personally want to focus on classroom procedures and the management of classroom transitions.
I’ll let you all know how it goes in due time!
Thanks to @danmagie for taking the time to find new ways to engage us all in our ongoing professional learning.
I would like to hear if your school has a structure for peer observations?



Ange Molony
Twitter: @MissAngeDP

How I've changed as a teacher: talking less

• Original post at Darryl Anderson
• Posted at 10:44 am on Thu, Jan 12, 2012

This past Monday morning was the first day of the semester and as expected my Grade 9 students were unfocused and talkative. It was the beginning of a new unit on Natural Disasters and as usual, I like to begin with a Preview Guide full of trivia questions or "identify-what's happening-in-the-photo" questions. The students enjoyed the trivia pre-quiz but it was hard to keep them quiet. They just had to discuss their answers with each other. My co-teacher was sitting in on the class since he was going to deliver the same lesson the next day and wanted to see how it worked. At one point in the quiz I commented to him: "wow, the kids are more talkative than usual today." He responded: "I know, this is crazy. My kids are always so quiet. They're angels compared to these guys. They just sit there and listen."

At first I felt defensive that I appeared to be a teacher who couldn't keep control of his students. But after the lesson I reflected on it and was glad that my students were so talkative. They couldn't help but share their ideas with each other. The quiz doesn't count for a grade, so who am I to tell them to keep quiet and work on this individually? Isn't the job of the teacher to ask questions rather than answer all the questions? If I sat in on his class with his quiet, passive students, would there be more or less evidence of learning than my talkative, actively engaged students? I remember in one of my masters courses an adage that says "a teacher should be more like a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage." In the past few years this has really sunk in and rather than just lecture my students and answer their questions, I try to prompt their enthusiasm by asking them questions, showing them intriguing photos and videos, and giving them trivia quizzes on the first day back from break.

It's easy to fall back into the pattern of lecturing and reading chapters from the textbook, especially in a content-heavy subject like Humanities. I think some teachers gravitate towards History and Geography because they enjoy sharing their endless knowledge of facts and anecdotes about the world. Of course there is a place for that in Humanities class and some students enjoy hearing their teacher tell stories about their travel experiences around the world. But sometimes I think it takes more of an effort to get off the stage and let the students have an unstructured discussion about what the teacher has presented them with.
Darryl Anderson
MYP Humanities